Jacce1971

I should add that in Finland we've always had a perverse tax treatment on cars. I just calculated that in 1990 a new Ford Sierra (Sapphire) RS Cosworth cost a whopping £52,000 in Finland (I believe it was around 20,000 in the UK)... So the annual Cosworth sales in Finland were in the single figures or low double figures at the very most.

Thank you! Sadly the 1.3 was never tuned to match the looks. It had the original 69 bhp and a 4-speed gearbox to match. Didn't have the money, the place nor the know-how to improve on the power. My mate had a pretty new Sapphire Cosworth around the same time which was, of course, an unbelievable car compared to almost anything on the road back then. He let me drive it every now and then and I of course fell deeply in love with the Cossie. Then, many years later I spotted the very same car for sale and bought it sight unseen. That's the car I mentioned in my previous comment.

Thank you for the kind words, everyone. Yeah, I suppose that's one of the thousand Finnish lakes in one of my photos. We did have many a brilliant rally driver back in the day, and now we have Kalle Rovanperä. Few of them as legendary as Mr. Mikkola, though. I have actually owned a RWD Ford RS as well, but not old skool enough for this forum (Sapphire Cosworth). What a gem of a car, though. The one I still think very fondly of. The power was all good and fun, but what set it apart from the rest was the handling and the fantastically responsive and quick steering. And RWD. Lovely piece of machinery.

Ok, I just realised old skool means RWD old... Sorry!

Hi all, thought I'd share a couple of pics of my old Escort mk3 that I owned back in the 90's. It's a 1982 four-speed Escort 1.3 (not a 1.3L, or GL). Just a base 1.3 I don't know if you even had such a lowly and humble trim level in the UK. The only spec below this was the base 1.1... Externally the 1.3 differed from the 1.3L by not having any chromed parts anywhere on the exterior of the car (Ford badge excluded). No chrome moldings in weather strips, the doors didn't have protective moldings at all (I actually preferred this cleaner look) The interior was also very spartan (2-speed heater blower, no glove compartment lid, very basic door cards covering only half of the door etc etc.) With a very modest budget, little by little, I managed to upgrade my car with higher spec parts ending up with a full XR3 interior, a backlit Sierra instrument cluster, illuminated gear lever knob, lit door handles (everything illuminated in red) etc etc. On the exterior I installed a modified and painted Ford Orion grille, a front spoiler made out of rubber, 14" Sierra iS wheels and hubcaps, XR3 springs, two-tone painted bumpers and XR3-inspired paint scheme with matte black door sills and window trim, illegally dark tail lights.